CrashOctopus Blog

Undead Seahorse by Meg Lyman

Digital

They burrow into your ears while you’re snorkeling and eat your braaaaaaains

Another quick digital sketch, companion to this one. Tried to increase the contrast, but also had a fun time exploring complimentary colors + opacity to create the shadows.

I am in crazy con preparation mode again. Anthrocon is next weekend! I have all my “preorders” done, meaning people who ordered small commissions to pick up at the convention. All I need to do now is pick out art show pieces and pack.

I have several step-by-step posts to show you in the near future. I have this “small character commission with no background” thing down to a science.

Just a quick digital sketch. I love the opacity features of digital and how you can explore any color without mixing, but I often forget to utilize contrast to its fullest digital extent. Oh well, next time!

Digital art is difficult for me. I admit I do have have a tablet, which is way waaaaaaay better than a mouse, for both art and everything else computery. However… I can’t seem to get the lines I want from the stylus to the screen. It’s so frustrating. Holding the stylus is no different than holding a pen or brush. So what’s the deal?

There are two things, I think, that mess me up: 1. Not having direct feedback and 2. Size difference.

1. No direct feedback. I don’t mean that there’s no “pushback” from the pen – I know some people have problems with that, but the lack of texture on the tablet surface doesn’t bother me. I mean visual feedback. I can’t see the lines I’m drawing under my stylus; I have to watch the screen instead of my pen to see what I’m doing. It’s tougher to adjust your stroke when you can’t see where you are in relation to where you’ve been. However, this is not nearly as big an obstacle as…

2. Size does matter. The size of the tablet is fixed. Each corner of the tablet has a corresponding corner on the screen. The screen is a different size than the tablet. And the drawing area can be zoomed to any size within the screen.

It’s kinda hard to explain. Let’s say I want to draw a vertical line 500 pixels long. I have my “e-canvas” zoomed so all of it fits nicely on my screen. With my screen configured this way, that 500-pixel line will be, say, 5 inches long on the screen. My screen is 10 inches tall, so the line is half the screen. That means I’ll have to move my stylus half of the vertical height of my tablet… which is 6 inches tall. So I’m moving my stylus 3 inches to draw a line that is 5 inches tall on the screen.

And by changing the zoom level of my e-canvas, that 500-pixel line can become, say, 2.5  or 10 inches tall. Confusing, I know… but the bottom line is that  moving my stylus 3 inches and getting 5 inches on the screen really messes with my spacial reasoning.

Then I try to add curves… and tentacles and eyes… See my dilemma?

Sometimes you just feel like putting the pencil to the paper to see what comes out. And sometimes you feel like doing it digitally, because you’re already sitting at your computer and your sketchbook is out of reach and your pencil is waaaay over in the other room… and why make all that effort when your tablet is right in front of you? Even if you don’t know how to use it very well. It’s a learning experience!

Music is a big part of life. It is pervasive – almost everywhere we go, we hear it pumping through speakers. Whenever I drive, the music is on. Whenever I’m at home, the music is on. Whenever I’m doing art, the music is on. But unlike other activities, I pay special attention to art music. Do you?

First of all, art is one of the few activities I do that makes me lose track of time. I’ll sit for hours, painting or drawing. I’ll forget to take a drink of my beer, forget that my butt has gone numb, and forget that I was supposed to change the laundry 3 hours ago. But I’ll notice if the music stops. It’ll interrupt even the most intense session. So, I do my best to avoid having to change music during art. Streaming radio, CDs, or hard drives full of MP3s are good for that.

Second, if a song comes on that doesn’t fit my mood, it’ll distract me. That’s the drawback to streaming radio. You can pick a genre, but sometimes you’ll get a song you just don’t like. Then you’re jumping up to change the station every half hour, and that’s not conducive to concentration… plus it’s as annoying as having to flip channels to avoid watching ads. (I’m not the only one who does that… right?)

And finally, music can be so emotionally powerful. A song can fill you with joy, longing, sadness, or despair. You can find a song for any mood, and any painting. Have you ever felt inspired to paint something because of a song? Or have you had ideas rolling around in your head for ages, when all of a sudden, a song comes on… and now you just HAVE to paint that idea?

It’s hard to plan for the moods you’ll be in or moods of the paintings you want to do, but I have a system – I get a good collection of songs for that day set up on my MP3 player, hit “shuffle,” and press play. I make sure the volume knob is handy in case I want to crank something. The emotions associated with music are some of the most powerful feelings I’ve had. They’re up there with beautiful scenery, nature, and being with the people I love. Now if only I could take a vacation with those folks to somewhere isolated with impressive scenery and listen to music while painting… wow.

Post a link to a song that inspires you. Share it with us!

Here’s one of mine. [link]

Also, do fish actually have ears?

An Oyster’s Cute Doom by Meg Lyman

Digital

As I slowly rebuild my desire to create and wean myself off my recent spate of physical exercise, I can’t help but wonder what I’m supposed to learn from it all. I mean, I feel guilty for not doing more art, but I feel great otherwise. It seems like I have time and inspiration to exercise my body or my spirit, but not both at the same time. I need to find a balance.

Maybe some spiritual artwork will be therapeutic. This is the last piece I finished, and it turned out to be way more brooding and sad than I planned. But I still like it, and it reflects the way I’m feeling about making art. I guess that’s how you know you’re an artist in your heart – when you don’t feel like making art, you make art to express how you feel.

Jesus Toucan by Meg Lyman

Digital (vector art done in Inkscape)

Happy Zombie Jesus Day to all! In celebration of this widely-celebrated holiday, have a holy toucan. If you are disinclined to celebrate this day because of your religion, or lack thereof… then here! Have some satire.

This came about because of Jesus Squid. It’s all his fault, and I can see this potentially snowballing out of control, until cute little haloed animal silhouettes are running amok and requiring that we all pay them homage with various morsels of food and bits of our souls.

If you haven’t seen Jesus Squid, there’s a bit of a progression. First, I wanted something very simple; I’m a sucker for simple elegance. Jesus Squid #1 looks like this:

I got several comments saying “it looks like a bird!” and the response, when asked which, was overwhelmingly “toucan.” There was one crow. Anyway, I decided to refine it so nobody would mistake it for an avian:

Good. People liked this one better. It was unequivocally “squid.” Success!

Jesus Toucan has been lurking in the back of my brain since, so I finally got it out. The whole thing made me wonder, yet again, at the nearly infinite ways that viewers will interpret a piece of art. As an artist, you see what you want it to be. Sometimes you’ve been staring at it for so long that you can’t see obvious errors (which is why critique is so valuable), let alone an entirely different interpretation. It’s sort of like the optical illusion with the faces and vases – you see one immediately, and it takes some effort and brainpower to see the other. That the same thing happens with art is fascinating to me. It’s even more pronounced with abstract art, of course, but it’s amazing that it happens at all when the subject is fairly clear-cut.

As an artist, what different (or strange?) interpretations have viewers had of your art? As a viewer, what have you seen that the artist, or other viewers, didn’t?

DISINTERESTED SQUID

IS DISINTERESTED

I could take this beyond one little digital piece, but I won’t. I promise.

If you are confused, visit I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER and view the “lolcats.” But you’ll get addicted. So click only after careful consideration about your free time, because the archives are calling like sirens…

Snoozy Squid by Meg Lyman

Digital (Gimp)

I doodled a bunch of cephalopods during some down time at DragonCon last weekend. That is, when I wasn’t distracted by neat costumes. A group of people came dressed as huge Tetris pieces!

I haven’t drawn with my tablet in a while, so I colored him digitally. I’m experimenting with non-smudge tool blending. This was done with a hard-edged brush on low opacity and color-picking the two colors, and as they blended, color-picking the blend. I’m really new at this, so any suggestions are appreciated.